Photos by Yvane Fifita

Supporting the development of a reading and writing culture in Tonga, the Commonwealth Foundation brought two prize-winning novelists to Nuku'alofa last week.

Mandla Langa from South Africa and Marina Endicott from Canada visited schools in the capital and met local artists and writers.

"We've talked so much today we even managed to get sunburnt tongues," said Mandla on May 20. "The experience I really felt was very important with those students today."

Both Mandla and Marina won the "Best Book" prizes for their regions in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize and were among the four best novelists in the Commonwealth chosen from 80 finalists.

It is the first time that the Commonwealth has brought writers to the South Pacific islands and Tonga is the only country they are visiting on this trip, said Jennifer Sobol, Programme Officer - Culture, from the Commonwealth Foundation, London, who accompanied them.

The writers conducted a four-hour workshop at the Ocean of Light school and held writers sessions with groups of students at Tonga High School, Tupou High School and the University of the South Pacific extension centre.

Stories

Marina said she found the experience very heartening. "I remember how the formative years chose the direction of my life," she said.

"We asked some the students to tell us stories based on big emotions they had experienced, and other groups had to report on the stories. There was a higher quality of writing than we would have expected and they did really well," said Marina.

Marina is the author of a couple of novels, including her successful novel "Good to a Fault" (Freehand Books), which this year won a Commonwealth prize for Best Book for the Canada and the Caribbean region. The mother of a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old, and a newspaper editor, Marina's success recently has allowed her to begin writing novels as a full time career, "winning the prize was the icing on the cake," she said.

Exile

Mandla is a family man from Johannesburg, South Africa, who describes his home as "a branch of the women's league". He has three daughters. His prize-winning novel for Africa "The Lost Colours of the Chameleon" (Picador Africa) is his fourth novel and his first book was a collection of stories.

During the apartheid years in South Africa Mandla spent 19 years in exile.

"I had to leave South Africa because I was involved in recruitment work for the ANC. I was imprisoned and skipped bail," he said.

Mandla lived in several African countries before living in London for eight or nine years.

"Before I left I was mainly writing poetry and I remember the joy of seeing my first poem in print," he said.

"Politics have formed a backdrop to my novels but they are not a central theme. I tried to run away from having plots dictated by political subjects.

"I am interested in relationships and how people negotiate life and whatever problems they might be having. But apartheid and its effects I ran away from. ... But my novels are still about South Africa," he said.

Both novelists encouraged the formation of a creative writers' association in Tonga.

Culture and development

The visit by the two novelists was coordinated by the Pacific Arts Alliance, a network of artists in the Pacific, through its Tonga contact, Ebony Fifita.

It followed the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival earlier this month when Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas was announced as the winner of the Commonwealth's Best Book Prize.

The programme of visiting writers is part of a new Commonwealth Foundation initiative on integrating culture and development.

"Putting Culture First" is a report that came out of the Commonwealth People's Forum in November 2007, where they called on member governments to take steps to support culture's role in development.

The report recommended that governments, development agencies, civil society and donors must start to adopt long term strategies to take account of culture.

"There is an urgent need to make people more aware of culture's importance in development processes ... and to enhance awareness of culture's importance at the political level," it states.

The report summarises government and civil society perspectives on the key ways in which culture is important for development. As well as making the case that culture is a missing piece in the development jigsaw.

One of the seven key connections, the report said is that, "Giving people a space for reflection and social critique is an important part of the development process."